Strategic Equality Plan

The Council has reviewed its Strategic Equality Plan that sets out how it aims to meet its commitment to equality and how it will meet its legal obligations contained within the Equality Act 2010.

The Equality Act 2010 brought together and replaced previous anti discrimination laws into a single Act and introduced a new general duty on the Council when making decisions and delivering services to have due regard how to:

Eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited under the Act

Advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it

Foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it

The Equality Act provides a power to make regulations imposing duties on public bodies to support better performance of the general duty; these are known as the Specific Public Sector Equality Duties and are different in England, Scotland and Wales.

The Public Sector Equality Duties in Wales which came in to force on 6th April 2011 included a requirement for public authorities (including Local Authorities and Schools) to develop and publish a Strategic Equality Plan by 2nd April 2012 that contained Equality Objectives and included information on the engagement process carried out in order to identify these.

The Council published its Strategic Equality Plan (SEP) in line with the legislative requirements in March 2012. The SEP set out how the Council had met its legal responsibilities in developing the SEP and included the Council’s Equality Objectives, how they had been identified, the approach taken in respect of engagement and the results, together with a comprehensive Action Plan that set out how the Council would deliver its objectives..

The SEP included a commitment to regular monitoring of the delivery of the SEP Action Plan which was carried out through the use of the Council’s Performance Management System, Ffynon, with regular quarterly reports being provided to Council Cabinet.

The ongoing monitoring process identified that minor changes needed to be made to some of our actions and by the end of the first year of monitoring and the production of the Annual Equality Report it was clear that due to changing circumstances and information the Equality Objectives and the action plan would need to be comprehensively reviewed in order to ensure that these changes could be reflected and to ensure that the action plan was up to date and deliverable.

As a result of the review of the SEP action plan and the information contained within the Annual Equality Monitoring Report the Equality Objectives have been amended to take into account the lessons learned from the initial delivery and the review.

The Equality Objectives are now as follows:

Hate Crime and Addressing Negative Attitudes and Behaviours

Developing more robust Monitoring Arrangements

Gender Pay Objective

An Action Plan has been developed in line with the Council’s Performance Management Arrangements. Progress will be monitored in the same way and at the same time as the Council’s priority and business plans.

If you would like more information on the Scheme or would like a copy of the Scheme in an alternative format or language please contact the Equality and Diversity Team on 01443 444531 or e mail equality@rctcbc.gov.uk.